Book Reviews
May 25 2012
REVIEW: Dark Soul: Volumes 3, 4, and 5 by Aleksandr Voinov
Dear Mr. Voinov, Your Dark Soul series has been a roller-coaster ride for me. It is not a genre romance, even though it has some very romantic moments. It features themes I rarely seek out, including menage, BDSM, and protagonists in organized crime. Purchasing all five volumes is not inexpensive. It is quite brutal in [...]
May 25 2012
REVIEW: Tea and Spices by Nina Lane
Dear Ms. Lane, Your novel was discussed in the comment thread to Kim T.’s post about South Asian romances. I discovered the ebook version after a bit of digging, since my first hit was on the paperback version, which you published under the name “Nina Roy.” While the blurb made me a little skeptical (“revolt [...]
May 25 2012
REVIEW: Bring Him Home by Karina Bliss
Dear Ms. Bliss: Your last few books have had a sort of a madcap adventure feel to them and so “Bring Him Home” is a change in tone and pace. It deals with grief and recovery and discovery and relies less on external conflict and more on the internal changes that the leads experience. Nathan [...]
May 24 2012
REVIEW: On the Island by Tracy Garvis-Graves
Dear Ms. Garvis-Graves, I picked up your book because it is everywhere lately. The concept of the teen boy-older woman romance is pretty repellant to me, but over 700 positive reviews on Amazon for a self-published book told me I should give this one a try. I read it, and I can see why it [...]
May 24 2012
REVIEW: The Anatomy of Death (aka A Dissection of Murder) by Felicity Young
“At the turn of the twentieth century, London’s political climate is in turmoil, as women fight for the right to vote. Dody McCleland has her own battles to fight. As England’s first female autopsy surgeon, she must prove herself as she proves that murder treats everyone equally. After a heated women’s rights rally turns violent, [...]
May 23 2012
REVIEW: Darkest Caress by Kaylea Cross
Dear Ms. Cross: The first book I read of yours was a contemporary romance which I enjoyed and hoped to see more of your work in that area. When your book, Darkest Caress, was released on NetGalley I was intrigued because it was not contemporary romance but instead, a paranormal. I am constantly on the [...]
May 23 2012
REVIEW: Spirit’s Princess by Esther Friesner
Dear Ms. Friesner, I’ve never read any of your books but I’ve certainly heard of you. How could I not? Not only do you have a substantial backlist, you’ve had a long career. Recently, it seems like you’ve turned your attention towards YA retellings of mythological princesses. In this novel, you focus on Himiko, the [...]
May 22 2012
REVIEW: White Tigress by Jade Lee
Dear Ms. Lee— When I saw you’d released your Tigress series digitally and the first one, originally published in 2005, White Tigress was free at Amazon, I downloaded it immediately. I’m always thrilled to find a historical romance not set in Regency England and I’m fascinated by China and its complex history. I cannot say [...]
Ebooks
May 20 2012
What is this price fixing lawsuit about anyway? A Q&A
Introduction I’ve talked to several readers about the price fixing lawsuit and people have a lot of questions. I thought I could provide a few answers here to help clarify matters. If you have a question, drop a line in the comments. 1. What are the lawsuits and who do they involve? There are three [...]
May 6 2012
Let the Tail Wag the Dog
Last week, Laura Hazard Owen of Paid Content tabulated that about 500,000 digital copies of Harry Potter have been sold since their release on March 27, 2012. Harry Potter series have reportedly sold 450 million copies in print. Despite those record breaking print sales prior to the official digital release and that there were illegal digital [...]
Apr 29 2012
Publisher Experiments I’d Like to See
In the past two weeks, we’ve seen two publishers engage in some experimental changes in the way they sell digital books. Sourcebooks launched a DRM free subscription site and TOR/FORGE announced it would be selling DRM free digital books beginning this summer. Traditional publishers have been quietly moving toward digital first programs for a couple [...]
Apr 22 2012
Antitrust Primer for the Publishing Price Fixing Lawsuit
Purpose of the Antitrust Law This article is to lay out, in simplest terms, antitrust law as it pertains to the publishing price fixing lawsuit. It is not designed to address the shortcomings of the law or the need for reform but the status of the law. Additionally, my knowledge of the antitrust law is [...]
Apr 15 2012
Eliminating DRM Is the Greatest Competitive Hammer Against Amazon
One thing that I’ve heard repeatedly from any publisher is that Amazon is a bad business partner. It doesn’t matter if the publisher is an agency pricing publisher or a low priced digital only publisher. Amazon treats everyone poorly. Amazon needs competition. Amazon has no motivation to keep prices low, innovate their retail site, improve [...]
Apr 8 2012
Backing Up Your eBooks
Last week included April Fool’s Day and sometimes crazy things can happen on April Fool’s Day. To prevent crazy things from adversely impacting your ebook reading, make sure you are backing up your ebook files. There are three primary ways to backup for your ebooks. Cloud storage There are more than a dozen cloud storage options [...]
Mar 11 2012
What Kind of Competition Has Retail Price Maintenance for Digital Books Fostered?
Last week, news came out that the Justice Department was readying a petition to sue five of the largest publishing houses in North America along with Apple for colluding together to maintain artificially high prices for digital books. This was initially instituted in January 2010 after Macmillan pulled its entire digital catalog from Amazon unless [...]
Mar 4 2012
Must have Android Apps (non-reading)
With over 400,000 apps in the Android Market it can be tough finding the right apps for your device. For reading books I find myself primarily using Kindle for Android and Mantano, but what about apps for other things? Below are a few non-reading apps that I’ve found I use all the time on either [...]
Need A Rec!
May 25 2012
REVIEW: Dark Soul: Volumes 3, 4, and 5 by Aleksandr Voinov
Dear Mr. Voinov, Your Dark Soul series has been a roller-coaster ride for me. It is not a genre romance, even though it has some very romantic moments. It features themes I rarely seek out, including menage, BDSM, and protagonists in organized crime. Purchasing all five volumes is not inexpensive. It is quite brutal in [...]
May 25 2012
REVIEW: Bring Him Home by Karina Bliss
Dear Ms. Bliss: Your last few books have had a sort of a madcap adventure feel to them and so “Bring Him Home” is a change in tone and pace. It deals with grief and recovery and discovery and relies less on external conflict and more on the internal changes that the leads experience. Nathan [...]
May 22 2012
REVIEW: Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray
“A mom in her early fifties, Clover knows she no longer turns heads the way she used to, and she’s only really missed when dinner isn’t on the table on time. Then Clover wakes up one morning to discover she’s invisible–truly invisible. She panics, but when her husband and son sit down to dinner, nothing [...]
May 21 2012
REVIEW: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
Dear Mr. Aaronovitch, Back in March, I read and reviewed your terrific debut, Midnight Riot (Rivers of London in the UK), an urban fantasy/police procedural narrated by an endearing London police constable named Peter Grant. Peter is a new recruit in a secret (and very small) department of the London Metropolitan Police which investigates supernatural [...]
May 21 2012
If You Like…Romances Set in South Asia or featuring South Asian characters
Dear Author guest post by Kim T. A few years ago, I watched a Hindi language, historical epic film called Jodhaa Akbar, starring Bollywood superstars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. As a librarian with a graduate degree in European history, I was intrigued by the 16th century historical detail in the film. And I [...]
May 15 2012
DA May Book Club Pick: Beguiling the Beauty by Sherry Thomas
The readers have voted (and it was a close call) but Sherry Thomas’ Beguiling the Beauty has won. Next Tuesday we’ll post a series of questions about the book and invite the author and the editor to weigh in. I thought the idea of themes is a great one for the book club so in [...]
May 10 2012
REVIEW: Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
Dear Ms. Mayberry— I think your novel Hot Island Nights is splendid—I love the rapport between Elizabeth and Nathan—and I was happy to learn your new self-published novel Her Best Worst Mistake is a companion/sequel to that tale. Her Best Worst Mistake chronicles what happens between Elizabeth’s wild best friend Violet and Elizabeth’s stuffy ex-fiancé [...]
May 9 2012
REVIEW: Homefront Hero by Allie Pleiter
Dashing and valiantly wounded, Captain John Gallows could have stepped straight out of an army recruitment poster. Leanne Sample can’t help being impressed–although the lovely Red Cross nurse tries to hide it. She knows better than to get attached to the daring captain who is only home to heal and help rally support for the [...]
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